myself sufficiently warmly.  But you know that I am not equal to the abandon of expression which distinguishes the large-hearted school of critics.’  Adam Bede was completed in the end of October, 1858, and Mr. Blackwood read the conclusion at once, and sent his opinions.  He says, ’I am happy to tell you that I think it is capital.—­I never saw such wonderful efforts worked out by such a succession of simple and yet delicate and minute touches.  Hetty’s night in the fields is marvellous.  I positively shuddered for her, poor creature; and I do not think the most thoughtless lad could read that terrible picture of her feelings and hopeless misery without being deeply moved.  Adam going to support her at the trial is a noble touch.  You really make him a gentleman by that act.  It is like giving him his spurs.  The way poor Hetty leans upon and clings to Dinah is beautiful.  Mr. Irwine is always good; so are the Poysers, lifelike as possible.  Dinah is a very striking and original character, always perfectly supported, and never obtrusive in her piety.  Very early in the book I took it into my head that it would be ‘borne in upon her’ to fall in love with Adam.  Arthur is the least satisfactory character, but he is true too.  The picture of his happy, complacent feelings before the bombshell bursts upon him is very good.’

“Adam Bede was published in the last week of January, 1859.  The author was desirous on this occasion to test her strength by appealing directly to the public; and the editor, though quite prepared to accept Adam Bede for the magazine, willingly gratified her.  Sending George Eliot an early copy, before Adam Bede had reached the public, he says, ’Whatever the subscription may be, I am confident of success—­great success.  The book is so novel and so true, that the whole story remains in my mind like a succession of incidents in the lives of people I know. Adam Bede can certainly never come under the class of popular agreeable stories; but those who love power, real humor, and true natural description, will stand by the sturdy carpenter and the living groups you have painted in and about Hayslope.’

“Adam Bede did not immediately command that signal success which, looking back to it now, we might have expected for it.  As the editor had warned the author, the Scenes had secured for her a reputation with the higher order of readers and with men of letters, but had not established her popularity with the public in general.  The reviewers, too, were somewhat divided.  Many of them recognized the merits of the work, but more committed the blunder of endeavoring to fix the position of the book by contrasting the author with the popular novelists of the time, and by endeavoring to determine from which of them she had drawn her inspiration.  In 1859 a review of Adam Bede from the pen of one of the oldest and ablest of our contributors was published in this magazine, and on its appearance George Eliot wrote